Something's Got A Hold Of Me
by PrettyVacant483
Summary: When Chris meets Lacey, he's shocked at what she knows. He goes undercover again as Red Mist to find out exactly how she knows her. However, he eventually finds out that he doesn't think he can deceive her, especially when she starts to grow on him.
1. No More Days To Waste

I tapped my pen against my desk and played the latest Green Day song in my head. It was annoyingly on repeat ever since it had played on the radio. I stared down from my high-leveled seat towards my college professor. I wasn't alone in my boredom. The various other student listened to iPods, texted, and talked. No one seemed to give a crap.

I momentarily forgot why I had chosen to attend NYU as opposed to Columbia and Yale. I believe it was because I was so sure that a school like NYU would more likely be occupied with 'regular' students. I wanted to be around people, not socialites and nerds on scholarships.

"Miss Dandridge," the professor said mid-way through his speech. A young blonde girl perked up her near-asleep head. She tossed her head back and let out a yawn. "Seeing as you were paying such good attention, why don't you list some of the members of the Tudor dynasty?"

"I… uh…" she mumbled. I couldn't seen her face because I sat so far behind her, but it was obvious that she was clueless. She paused a moment before confidently saying, "King Henry VII, Catherine of Aragon, Henry VIII, Edward VI, Mary I, and Elizabeth I."

The class stood quiet. It certainly wasn't the toughest question to answer by far; however this was a student who I had never heard spoken in class before. I had heard her giggle and gossip amongst friends and a guy who I presumed to be her boyfriend, but that was it. Many other students stared and probably thought like I did.

After a moment, I picked up my head and dropped my pencil on the ground. In the silence, it sounded light a jet flying over us. The whole class turned around to see the source of the sound, including Dandridge. She stared at me with a cocked-up eyebrow before turning around like nothing had happened.

I awkwardly grinned and picked up my pencil before the whole class forgot the event. Not just the pencil, but Dandridge's little display of Tudor knowledge too.

Ten minutes later, we were dismissed from class. Everyone grabbed their things and left, but I moved a little slower than the rest of them. They were all eager to get the weekend started, but I had no hurry. I strolled down the steps and noticed a large European History book sitting on the floor near the aisle. I picked it up and opened the front cover. 'LACEY DANDRIDGE' was imprinted on it neatly. I flipped through a couple of pages. Unlike mine, her book was clear from any notes, highlights, or even dog-ears. It was near perfect aside from the few scratches on the cover.

I held it under my arm, next to the other books, and walked out of class. I stood on my toes and looked over the crowd of students. She was nowhere to be found. After a while, I learned that Lacey would most likely be spending her afternoon at a coffee shop at the corner of Broadway and 42nd.

After a short period of contemplating, I decided to make my way to the coffee shop and return it to her. It wasn't as if I had better things to do.

Arriving at the shop, I suddenly found myself feeling like a moron before I even saw her. She sat in a back corner, sipping a tall coffee, and listening to her iPod. She flipped through a magazine and appeared to be mouthing the lyrics to whatever song she was listening to. Her head bobbed to the beat.

I walked up to the cashier and ordered a basic coffee. As she ranged up my order, she noticed me looking back at Lacey.

"Lacey Dandridge?" she said, not looking up from the cash register.

I looked back at her. "Yeah, so what?"

She chuckled. "She is _so _out of your league. That'll be dollar eighty-seven."

I rolled my eyes and handed her a five out of my wallet. Didn't she think I already knew? I was just trying to give her back her textbook. Being a good citizen, and all that shit.

"Or not."

I glared back at the cashier. "What do you mean?"

"That's a six-hundred dollar wallet. Money like that can give you up to five extra points on the attractive scale."

I looked at my wallet for a moment. I never knew how much it cost. My mother had given it to me for a high school graduation present, and I never thought twice.

"Three thirteen's your change. Have a nice day." She gave me my coffee and change along with a 'good luck, you'll need it' smile.

"Thanks…" I dragged. Her smile was right. I was going to take all the luck that I needed. I sat at a table right next to Lacey, but was too big of a pussy to just right off the bat tell her that I had her book. As time progressed, it seemed to be more and more difficult. What was I supposed to say? _Hey, I found your book after class and was to big of a prick to just drop it off here. So, I instead decided to sit here and stare at you like a total asshole. Have a nice day._

Instead, I decided to not notice who she was. Something would happen so that she would make a small scene, I would pull an 'oh, _you're_ Lacey Dandridge?' and it would be over.

"Yes, this is Lacey Dandridge."

Fuck. That actually worked? I looked over at her and saw her talking on her cell phone.

"Yes? Twelve tomorrow? Yeah, that'll be fine. M'kay. Thanks."

This was my last chance to say something without being a _complete_ moron. "Hey, are you Lacey Dandridge?"

She nodded hesitantly. "Yeah. Can I help you?"

"I found you're book, and someone told me you might be here. Here you go," I said, handing her the heavy textbook.

Lacey smiled, stood up, and took the book with both hands. When I got up, I realized how short she was. Maybe five-two at most. She hauled her purse over her shoulder and picked up another of her text books. "Thank you. I am so damn forgetful sometimes."

"It didn't look like that in class. It must take a good bit of memory to memorize all that about the Tudors."

She laughed and looked away. "Ah, you remember that. I was just lucky, I guess. My name's Lacey, as you know."

"Right," I said smiling back. She stared at me for a moment before it finally clicked. "Oh! I'm Chris."

She laughed again. I had to admit, it was kind of cute. "Nice to meet you, Chris. I gotta go." She was still out of my league.

"No, of course. I guess I'll see you around sometime."

Lacey nodded and headed for the door. "Yeah."

I picked up my own books before I heard: "Actually…" I perked my head back at her. I couldn't even believe she was going to give me another sentence. "There's a party at my place tonight. If you'd like to come hang out, you're welcome to do so."

I nodded a little too eagerly. "Yeah, great."

"Corner of fifth and twelfth. Nine o'clock."

"I'll be there." She had already left.


	2. Blow

"A party in New York, anything special I should know about?" I asked Aaron as I walked into the apartment and tossed my books and purse onto the chair next to the door.

He sat on a Lazy-Boy chair in front of the TV. It was reclined back to his comfort. Aaron turned to look at me before taking a sip of the Lite beer he had. "No. There's beer and food in the kitchen, and I hooked your iPod up to the speaker set. It's only two o'clock, anyway. How many people have you invited?"

I shrugged. "Some girls from class, the people from the theater. Oh, and some guy I met the coffee shop."

"Ooh," he said, putting down the beer. "Name, age, appearance."

Rolling my eyes, I sat down on his armrest. "Name… Kevin? Carl? Chris? Something like that. I guess my age-ish… and…" I struggled to think of a good descriptions. "Average height, maybe - I'm not one to judge - dark hair, dresses unusually formal. Oh, he has a slight lisp."

"So, on a scale of one to ten…"

"Five?" I said, sounding it out as though it were a question. "I didn't invite him because I think he's cute; I invited him because I see him everyday in class, and he's always alone."

"So out of pity-"

I shook my head defensively. "No, I don't-" I took a moment to think about it. "Okay, I pity him. There's no harm in that, is there?."

"Sure," he grumbled unconvincingly. Aaron has always been opinionated in my decisions, and when he didn't upright tell me what he thought, it meant that he wanted to see how things turned out.

Aaron and I are also near polar opposites. He's over six feet tall, and I'm barely five. He had short, raggedy hair; mine was long, straight and blonde. He was built like Jason Segel; I'm like Kristen Bell. However, there is one thing we have in common: we had a thing for Bradley Cooper films.

"Seriously," I insisted. "I mean, what's the worst that could happen?"

"You could get drunk. He could get drunk." Aaron picked up and pointed his beer in the direction towards my bedroom. "You both could get drunk. In there."

I gaped my mouth and crossed my arms. "I resent that," I said with a laugh.

"We both know you have a history of 'feeling sorry' for guys."

"Do not," I firmly declared.

"There was that kid in the tenth grade whose cat died."

"He had Snickers since he was three."

"The French guy who lost his plane ticket."

"He hadn't seen his mom in two years."

He lowered his head and looked up at me. "Lacey…"

"I promise, I will not sleep with… Kuh… Kri… whatshisname." I jumped up and grabbed my purse, ignoring my books. Slinging it across my shoulder, I headed for my room. With my hand resting on the door, midway through opening it, I turned around to my older brother. "Hey."

Aaron looked around. "What? I didn't say anything," he responded innocently before revealing a playful smile.

I could barely control my laughter as Michael spun his 'beer sword' around the room. He glued several beers together to where, well, it formed a large, aluminum sword. "Bow to me, Lady Dandridge," he declared, accidentally smacking my right shoulder with it.

"Ow!" I joked. "That hurt!"

It was only eight-thirty, but Michael had already found the time to make his ridiculous contraption. He collapsed to the floor and held his stomach with his free hand.

"Oh my god! Michael, did you superglue the sword to your hand!" I heard some girl in the small audience of twelve shout.

He sat up and looked at it, but his expression didn't change. "Fuck!" He laughed again.

We joined in his hilarious escapade when I noticed the guy from the coffee shop. "Hey! You came!" He smiled at me. I noticed that he had changed his outfit for some reason. He ditched the blazer and changed it with a simple black leather jacket. He also changed his shoes to a pair of white Adidas sneakers with grey stripes running down the side. "Everyone, this is-"

Fuck. I still couldn't remember his name. I looked at him for a moment and then shouted: "Chris!"

The others smiled, said hello, and immediately forgot that he was there.

"Youth intention span, for ya," I said to no one in particular. "Aaron, where are you? Where'd you put my iPod?"

I shoved my way out of the group of acquaintances I called "friends" and began to search for my ever-disappearing brother. He was the type of man to tell you to meet him at five, and he'd forget _where_ he asked you to meet him. Aside from that, he was always the more likely of us to have his head in the right place.

"Aaron!" I eventually found him in the kitchen talking to a guy. The new guy was three to four inches shorter than Aaron. When I saw this, I smiled and folded my arms. When Aaron noticed me, he bucked his head for me to head out and leave him alone. I walked up to the two of them. "Hello, I'm Lacey, Aaron's sister."

"Joey," he introduced. "Aaron and I were talking about the new season of Burn Notice."

I nodded. "Of course you were." I looked back at my older brother and smiled. "I just thought that I should let you know that my brother's a bit of a playboy. Girls _and_ guys can't get enough of him." Joey had bright blonde hair which was cut short, almost military style. He wore a fitted red sweater along with a pair of straight jeans. "A lot of ladies end up disappointed. Do you know how many times in high school I had to divert their eyes?"

"Really?" Joey said, smiling at Aaron.

"Really-"

I stood quiet when I noticed that someone had raised the volume on the TV.

"I've got to go," I said, leaving my brother. "You two boys have fun."

I headed to the living room when I noticed that several people were hypnotized by some sort of newscast on the television.

"_The recent disappearance of Kick-Ass and Red Mist has caused an uproar from America's youth. Multiple FaceBook campaigns have emerged in the effort to bring back the DIY superheroes," announced a middle-aged news broadcaster. "Red Mist has recently shut down his website, and Kick-Ass has not been seen since the famous video of him under torture along with another superhero who was called 'Big Daddy' emerged. Kick-Ass's MySpace page has remained in tact, but has not been updated since the day of the video. _

"_As previous reports have stated, when the police arrived at the warehouse, 'Big Daddy' was found, burned beyond recognition. He was already dead by the time medics arrived. His identity still has not been uncovered. Kick-Ass had left the scene before police arrived. The identity of the young girl, whom appeared at the end of the video, is still unknown. The only hint are the two letters on her belt buckle 'HG.' _

"_Several bodies were also discovered on the scene. Their specific names were not released, but they are believed to be employees of suspected drug-lord late Fr-"_

At that time, someone turned of the TV. Several of us whined, but nobody gave it much thought after that. It remained silent before some random guy shouted, "Someone turn the music on louder!"


	3. Sharp, Cool and Collected

_Today's the last day of school. This chapter has been written for a while. I don't know why I've been to lazy to upload. On the upside, I got a 1900 on my SATs __J _

_Changing the title when I add chpt 4. Lettin' y'all know. It's gonna be "Heroes Are Hard To Find" from Fleetwood Mac. Wasn't a fan of the current title. I just needed one._

Arriving at the apartment building, I wasn't sure which button I was supposed to hit when I would enter the elevator. So, instead of the elevator, I decided to take the stairs, seeing as there were no people in the lobby. Around the ninth floor, I began to hear the loud pounding of remixed Ke$ha songs. I went up to the next floor where the music was at its maximum and walked out of the staircase. The entire floor appeared to be a part of the party. People drank in the hallways, and one of the girls directed my to Lacey's apartment.

Dozens of college-students were talking, dancing, and drinking around the decently large apartment. I listened around in hopes I could hear Lacey's voice, and I soon began to think it would be hopeless.

"Ow!" I heard her shout. "That hurt!"

I walked over to her and saw another guy throwing around a sword made of empty beer cans. The group was in hysterical laughter before Lacey saw me from across the small circle that had made around the beer-sword guy. "Hey, you came!"

I smiled and nodded. "Everybody this is-"

Had she forgotten my name? I wouldn't blame her if she had. I mean-

"Chris!"

Or, perhaps it had just slipped her mind for a moment. No one seemed to give a shit I was there. "Youth intention span, for ya," she said. I wasn't quite sure if that was directed at me.

She left to look for her (as I thought) boyfriend, Aaron, in hopes that he would have her iPod. Instead of following her, I walked around in hopes to find something to occupy my time. I saw several people watching a news broadcast about Red Mist and Kick-Ass and asked the girl with the remote to turn it up. Everyone got a little quieter.

Soon, Lacey walked up to the TV and didn't take notice to me. Near the end, I realized that I needed to turn off the TV because they might've shown of photograph of my father and said my name.

"_Several bodies were also discovered on the scene. Their specific names were not released, but they are believed to be employees of suspected drug-lord late Fr-"_

I snatched the remote from the drunk's hand and shut off the TV.

After some moron shouted for louder music, I heard Lacey's voice pipe up. "Who're Red Mist and Kick-Ass?"

"You never heard of the real life superheroes?" Beer-can-sword guy asked. "Dude, they were awesome. They went around New York and solved crimes and shit. But then they just disappeared."

"Kick-ass didn't just disappear," another girl interrupted. "He was tortured with that Big Daddy guy. When the police got there, the little girl and Kick-Ass were gone, and they weren't able to identify Big Daddy's body. They still don't know who he actually is. Red Mist, on the other hand, just vanished."

"Well, I-" I said, trying to interrupt.

"You're telling me some guys dressed up as superheroes and became vigilantes?" Lacey asked, trying to get the story straight. "How old were they?"

"The autopsy identified Big Daddy as apparently in his early forties," the girl answered. "But Kick-Ass and Red Mist couldn't have been older than twenty."

"The little girl was like… ten…" Beer-can-sword guy drowned on. "And fucking awesome."

With her arms crossed her chest, Lacey stared at the powered down TV and seemed to be in a deep state of though. "Uh, well that's odd. Cool, but weird. So Kick-Ass was the green one they showed, right? Kinda looked like a giant green tadpole, in my opinion."

I failed at completely holding back my smile. I cleared my throat and asked, "What about Red Mist?"

"The one with the funky hair?" she asked back. "Meh. I think I like his costume better though."

Score one for The Mist.

Everyone dispersed, and Lacey's eyes were fixed on the turned-off TV. She appeared to be stuck in some sort of trance. "Lacey," I said, but her eyes were glued. "Lacey… Hello?" I waved a hand in front of her face.

She shook her head and then smiled at me. "What? Sorry, I tend to do that sometimes."

I shrugged, crossed my arms, and nodded. "It's fine. So-"

"People just went around and dressed as superheros?" she asked, cutting me off. I barely had a moment to process what she said before she continued. "I mean, these people like Kick-Ass, Hit-Girl, the works, they just went around and-" she did the infamous 'air quotes' move, "- 'fought crime'?"

"Yeah, I guess-" Wait a second.

How the hell did she know Hit-Girl's name?

"What did you say?"

She didn't even turn and look at me. "What? Kick-Ass and Red Mist go around and fight crime. It's fucking weird."

Did I just misunderstand her? My mind must have been playing tricks on me. I needed to socialize more.

"I mean, what kind of guy lets his little girl go around and 'fight crime' dressed as a purple-covered superheroin?"

"I don't know," I said. I watched her leave and found myself staring at the TV myself.

Wait another fucking second. The color saturation of the broadcast was completely fucked up. It was impossible to tell what color she was wearing. I wasn't mistaken. Lacey knew something she shouldn't.

But how was I going to do that? I had to get out of there. Every moment here was time wasted. I quickly tried to remember who could possibly know Hit-Girl's name as I left the party.

Everyone at the warehouse died, so they were off the list. I dialed my chauffer's phone number and told him to pick me up immediately. After I woke up from the blackout, no one was on that floor. The doormen were dead. Louis was gone. Mikey. Joey. They all died. There had to be someone I wasn't thinking of. Mom had gone shopping that day, so she saw nothing. Ian was on vacation.

Everyone was just dead.

So did they have a personal connection?


End file.
